After Italy
by Leppy
Summary: Basically this is Edwards point of veiw for when Bella wakes up after she has saved Edward in Italy... Hence the name "After Italy :
1. Waking Up

**After Italy**

By Leppy

***All copyright, characters etc belong to the fabulous Stephanie Meyer. As well all of the dialogue in this belongs to Stephanie.***

SHORT SUMMARY: Basically this is Edwards point of veiw of when Bella wakes up after she saved Edward in Italy... Hence the name "After Italy :)

As I lay beside her watching my angel sleep like I had so many months ago her voice was silent. The usual melodic whispering of my name was absent from this memory down memory lane. Pain took control as I reached the realization that she must have done what I intended her to; move on. Who had stolen my love's heart? I tried to tell myself that it was not stolen, I had willingly given it up. A truly upsetting thought popped into my head. What if it was that vile Mike Newton? I so badly wanted to smash something, instead my finger found the old, rusted bottle cap in my jacket pocket from the day she had chosen me over him. Whether that choice still applied or not would be known very soon as Bella's breathing grew rougher and less even.

She still didn't wake up, fourteen hours was a very long to be asleep. Maybe she was slipping into a coma and I was the fool watching, letting her. I began checking her vitals, as I was touching her forehead three things happened simultaneously. Her breathing hitched, her heart sped up and her eyes squeezed shut even tighter. I froze then pulled my hand away and wrapped it back around her waist. My love opened her eyes to reveal the shock; fear and slight exasperation before her fists hid her beautiful eyes from my view. As her hands came down her pools of chocolate showed acceptance and slight confusion. I decided this would be as good of time as any to talk.

"Did I frighten you?" If she was going to tell me she hated me I hoped she would do it fast. It would give me more time to beg.

Suddenly her face changed from contemplation to pain, "Oh crap."

I had to ask, "What's wrong Bella?" I thought she was going to kick me out and she understood it would hurt me so the next words to come from her mouth were quite bewildering.

"I'm dead right?"

What! She thought she was dead? "I did drown. Crap, crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie."

I suppose I do deserve to be her version of hell but it stung a smidgen more than expected. "You're not dead."

She raised her eyebrows in defiance, "Then why am I not waking up?"

Silly girl, "You _are _awake Bella."

"Sure, sure. That's what you want me to think. And then it'll be worse when I wake up. If I wake up, which I won't, because I'm dead. This is awful. Poor Charlie. And Renee. And Jake..."

I sat and silently listened to her rant, the pain I felt when she did not mention my name in her list was truly overwhelming. She truly and honestly believed I didn't love her, that I didn't care.

"I can see where you might confuse me with a nightmare but I can't imagine what you could have done to wind up in hell. Did you commit many murders while I was away?"

She flinched away from me, "Obviously not. If I was in hell, you wouldn't be with me." I sighed, Bella, always being the selfless one was attempting to placate me.

She paused and glanced at the window hesitantly; slowly her face became my favorite shade of magenta. "Did all of that really happen?"

"That depends," I felt my smile freeze, I didn't enjoy thinking of my angel being murdered, "If you're referring to us nearly being massacred in Italy, then, yes."

"How strange, I really went to Italy. Did you know I've never been further east than Albuquerque?"

I rolled my eyes, only Bella. "Maybe you should go back to sleep. You're not coherent."

Stubbornly she replied, "I'm not tired anymore. What time is it? How long have I been sleeping?"

"It's just after one in the morning. So about fourteen hours."

"Charlie?"

I didn't want this to come up so fast, "Sleeping. You should probably know that I'm breaking his rules right now. Well not technically, since he said I was never to walk through his door again and I came through the window... But still the intent was clear."

"Charlie banned you from the house?" She questioned me in disbelief.

I broke his daughter's heart, of course he banned me, "Did you expect anything else?"

My furious kitten looked thoroughly upset, being Bella she changed the subject. "What's the story?"

"What do you mean?" And of course she would change it to the one thing I couldn't follow.

"What am I telling Charlie? What's my excuse for disappearing for... how long was I gone anyway?

"Just three days," Just enough time to become like me. "Actually I was hoping you would have a good explanation. I've got nothing."

She groaned, "Fabulous"

I tried to comfort my darling angel, "Well, maybe Alice will come up with something."

**This is a one shot but upon demand I MAY write more. Reveiw Please! Oh and it's my first FF. :) **


	2. Disbelief

After Italy

By Leppy

_***All copyright, characters etc belong to the fabulous Stephanie Meyer. As well all of the dialogue in this belongs to Stephanie.***_

_***The last quote also belongs to Billy Joel***_

_I always felt that Edward didn't truly suffer _enough_ for all that he put Bella through in New Moon, sure he felt the same way across the world but he made the choice and always had the choice while Bella had this melancholic fate forced upon her, so if my version of Edward Cullen seems a touch too self loathing and self suffering it is because I hope that he understands what he did to her and that in his mind he is abusing himself like I felt he should have._

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Her face relaxed slightly then tensed as she came to a conclusion in her glorious yet silent mind. "So," she hesitated with a look of pure longing on her face, who was she longing for? Myself? Jacob? My absence? "What have you been doing up until 3 days ago?"

Of course Bella would find the one question I did not wish to answer, "Nothing terribly exciting"

"Of course not," She muttered with pursed lips.

She looked so annoyed, I had to question it, "Why are you making that face?"

"Well, if you were, after all, just a dream, that's exactly the kind of thing you would say. My imagination must be used up."

I let the air empty from my lungs, my stubborn angel, knowing Bella she wouldn't let this go, not until I clued her in, "If I tell you, will you finally believe that you're not having a nightmare?"

"Nightmare!" she repeated disbelievingly. After what I've put this innocent creature through the only thing she should recognize me from is nightmares, "Maybe, if you tell me ."

"I was... hunting." I could only hope she wouldn't persist, but being Bella she did.

Bella looked me up and down critically, "Is that the best you can do? That definitely doesn't prove I'm awake."

I briefly wondered how much of a monster she would think I was when I admitted the truth, though I was already the worst kind of monster in existence because I put gods greatest gift through hell and back, "I wasn't hunting for food... I was actually trying my hand at... tracking. I'm not very good at it." But oh how I wish I could succeed, anything and everything to make the world safe for my beautiful Bella.

"What were you tracking?"

Only the most foul demon I can imagine, "Nothing of consequence."

"I don't understand."

Though I truly did not want to explain my desire to rip Victoria's head from her body for all of her vile thoughts and actions hearing Bella's voice sound so confused and lost, as it had in September, made me need to tell her everything, and explain my own actions.

"I-" I took a breathe to confirm my love was actually in front of me, living, breathing and awake, "I owe you an apology. No of course I owe you much, much more than that. But you have to know that I had no idea." I can't believe I was so incredibly dense, so ignorant, so much of everything I thought I wasn't. "I didn't realize the mess I was leaving behind. I thought it was safe for you here," I can't believe I was so careless about the one thing that holds me to this earth, "So safe. I had no idea that Victoria would come back. I'll admit, when I saw her that one time I was paying much more attention to James's thoughts. But I just didn't see this kind of response in her. That she even had such a tie to him. I think I realize why now-she was so sure of him, the thought of him failing never occurred to her." Just as the thought of Bella's early demise never occurred to me. "It was her overconfidence that clouded her feelings about him-that kept me from seeing the depth of the bond there." I was, apparently, painfully oblivious to the depth of relationships, Victoria and James's, mine and Bella's, who's would I screw up next?

"Not that there's any excuse for what I left you to face." There will never be an excuse for me, if I hadn't been damned before I will be now, "When I heard what you told Alice-what she saw herself-when I realized that you had to put your life in the hands of _werewolves_, immature, volatile, the worst thing out there besides Victoria herself" I couldn't repress the shudder that ripped through my body from the image of my frail little Bella involved with monsters like that. Ones only marginally better than myself. "Please know that I feel sick, sick to my core, even now, when I can see and feel you safe in my arms. I am the most miserable excuse for-"

"Stop," I knew she would take over now, tell me how horrible I am, how I don't deserve life, how she wishes I had just stayed away, this was the moment that I had been dreading for three days, if I was honest I had been dreading it since last March. The moment she finally realized how much better she is that I. The final moment when she truly see's me for the monster I am and I must give up the privilege of calling her_ my_ love, _my _angel, _my _beautiful Bella, of calling her mine.

Suddenly her face smoothed, completely transformed into a mask, she understood she could shatter me, "Edward," ahhh how much I have missed my name on her lips, "This has to stop now. You can't think about things that way. You can't let this... this guilt... rule your life. You can't take responsibility for the things that happen to me here. None of it is your fault, it's just a part of how life is for me. So, if I trip in front of a bus or whatever it is next time, you have to realize that it's not your job to take the blame. You can't just go running off to Italy because you feel bad that you didn't save me." On the exterior I was trying to seem calm and together while inside I couldn't believe it, she completely thought I didn't love her, as though my existence could not have her in it, "Even if I had jumped off that cliff to die, that would have been my choice and _not your fault." _Of course that would have been my fault, I should have been there to catch her when she fell, pick her up off the ground and put the pieces back together. "I know it's your... your nature to shoulder the blame for everything, but you really can't let that make you go to such extremes! It's very irresponsible-think of Esme and Carlisle and-" She paused and breathed in deeply, reading to start back up again.

She couldn't believe this truly and deeply that I didn't love for her. "Isabella Marie Swan," With saying her name a huge weight felt lifted off of my chest, "Do you believe I asked the Volturi to kill me because I felt guilty?"

"Didn't you?"

"Feel guilty?" Most definitely darling, I put you in that near death situation, "Intensely so. More than you can comprehend."

"Then... what are you saying?"

Oh sweet lord what had I done to make this girl lose her faith in me so completely? Oh yes my mind responded bitterly, I only broke her heart cruelly, nonchalantly and uncaringly. "Bella, I went to the Volturi because I thought you were dead. Even if I'd had no hand in your death, even if it wasn't my fault, I would have gone to Italy. Obviously I should have been more careful-I should have spoken to Alice directly, rather than accepting it secondhand from Rosalie. But, really what was I supposed to think when the boy said Charlie was at the funeral? What are the odds?

"The odds...," Ahhhh the odds, time after time they will always fight my love for Bella, " The odds are always stacked against us. Mistake after mistake. I'll never criticize Romeo again."

As per usual my love pulled me from my thoughts, "But I still don't understand, that's my whole point. So what?"

"Excuse me?" I dearly hope she is not insinuating what I think she is.

"So what if I was dead"

Oh Bella why did I lie to you? Why did you have to believe me? I will spend the rest of forever trying to make it up to my angel. To quote Billy Joel, without Bella 'I don't care to know the hour cause it's passing anyway, I don't need to see tomorrow cause I saw it yesterday.' My darling Bella when will you understand that without you all the world is black?

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_I would like to dedicate this second chapter first off to **everyone who reviewed or subscribed to this story in someway** I tried to name you all but it got too confusing :((( but thank you all so so much it super means a lot and made me keep writing :)_


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